Belter Creole grammar
This page deals with the grammar of Belter Creole, also known as lang Belta. Typologically, Belter is an analytic language. Rather than inflections, it primarily uses separate words to build grammatical constructions, such as prepositions and auxiliary verbs, and the meaning of a sentence depends strongly on word order. However, it does use compounding and some suffixes for deriving new words. For example, the -lowda suffix is used to form plural pronouns (see below). Nouns Plurals Generally, nouns are not inflected for number; a singular noun has the same form as a plural one. For example, maliwala can mean either "child" or "children", depending on context. Plurality is determined in other ways: the presence of quantifiers, numerals, or simply inferred from context.https://twitter.com/Nfarmerlinguist/status/708049355173834753 The exception is pronouns, which do have distinct plural forms (see Pronouns below). Compounds Nouns may be used attributively to modify other nouns, forming a compound noun. Unlike in English, where the modifier typically precedes the word being modified, in lang Belta the head noun goes first and the one modifying it follows afterwards: : : Articles The indefinite article is wa: : The definite article is da:https://twitter.com/Nfarmerlinguist/status/840229898308399106 : Definite articles are used before a person's name in some cases, e.g. da Mila for "Miller". Belter displays definiteness agreement, similar to that found in Greek or Hebrew. That is, when a noun is marked with da, any attributive nouns or adjectives applied to that noun must also be so marked:https://twitter.com/Nfarmerlinguist/status/707289345049231360 :livit Belta "Belter life" → da''' livit da Belta'' "the Belter life" :setara mali "little star" → ''da setara da mali'' "the little star" Determiners delowda(relative)/kelowda(interrogative): how many/how much Quantifiers : Derivation : Pro-forms This is a (possibly incomplete) chart of pronouns, pro-adverbs and determiners, arranged in a convenient table-of-correlatives format. Pronouns sif beltalowda inyalowda Adjectives Adjectives are placed after the nouns they modify: :kapawu fash "fast ship" :setara mali "little star" Adverbs Prepositions efa: after ere: at, on, about (locative preposition) erefo: into fing: until fo: for, to fong: from fongi fode: away fore: before wit / nawit: with/without Conjunctions unte: and o: or amash: but Verbs Tense ta: past tense indicator gonya: future tense indicator Aspect ando: continuous aspect marker finyish: perfective aspect marker tili: habitual aspect marker Mood mebi fosho mogut fo mowsh deng fo Serial verbs Light verbs du Negation na Numbers Below are the words for basic numbers.https://twitter.com/Nfarmerlinguist/status/841759024869605377 Multiples of 10 or 100 are formed by appending teng or xanya to the combining form of the multiplier, with the stress remaining on the multiplier: Numbers with values in both the ones and tens place are composed in little-endian order, joined by un: :18 = et-un-teng ("eight and ten") :81 = wang-un-éteteng ("one and eight tens") If there is a hundreds place, it comes before the ones-and-tens place terms:https://twitter.com/Nfarmerlinguist/status/841785504320315392 :246 = túxanya sikesh-un-futeng When used attributively, numbers come before the noun they count, as in English.https://twitter.com/Nfarmerlinguist/status/842582221340925952 :serí buk – three books Sentence structure Word order SVO Zero copula : Forming questions Any sentence can be turned into a yes–no question by ending it with the interrogative particle ke: : The related tag question keyá also makes a sentence into a yes–no question, but one which expects agreement: :''Da Rosi im kapawu fash, '''keyá? :The Roci is a fast ship, isn't it? Sentences containing the ke-based interrogative words kemang, kepelésh, ketim, keting, or kewe do not need the trailing ke. :''Kepelésh shapu to, Mila?'' :Where's your hat, Miller? See also * Belter Creole * List of Belter Creole individual articles Category:Belter language